


It's Under Control

by TommysIdiosyncrasy



Series: It's A Long Walk Home, Kid [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Bullying, Flash Thompson Being A Jerk, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Im tired, Not Canon Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Protective Tony Stark, Rated T for language, The author doesn't know, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, no editing today boys, what is the timeline?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22245259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TommysIdiosyncrasy/pseuds/TommysIdiosyncrasy
Summary: Flash Thompson's an asshole and Tony Stark is a dad
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: It's A Long Walk Home, Kid [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1297046
Comments: 15
Kudos: 393





	It's Under Control

Peter was used to assholes with big heads. 

Asshole number one? Flash Thompson. 

He tormented Peter for a majority of Middle School and now through his freshman year and he never seemed to get bored of it. It was all typical movie-bully stuff, idiotic stuff that didn’t matter when you’re hunting down real criminals every night.

Peter ignored him and his antics, despite the rush of adrenalin into his system and the tensing of his muscles each time to boy antagonized him. 

On one chilly afternoon in October, Peter was trying to hurry home so he could get an early start on the heavy homework pile he had. As he was hopping down the steps and turning the corner towards the subways, he heard footsteps behind him.

Immediately he identified about five or so people walking, they were probably a dozen feet behind but they were keeping a steady pace with him. Instantly on edge, he glanced casually over his shoulder to spy none other than Flash with a group of obviously older guys. College kids? Peter wasn’t sure, increasing his speed down the street.

“Hey Penis, wait up!” Flinching lightly at the shout, Peter didn’t slow. He heard them hurrying after him and Peter’s heart jumped into high drive when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “Whoa, what’s the rush?” 

Before Peter could answer that he was _too busy for this shit_ , they’d grabbed him and dragged him into an ally between the school and an office building. 

“Flash, I don’t have time for this today.” he sighed, not liking the taller guys all crowding him in against a filthy dumpster. 

“Penis got an attitude, huh?” Flash said, body loose and casual while his face was tight with smug menace. “My friends aren’t too fond of nerds with a mouth.” 

Without warning, two of them grabbed his arms and knocked his feet out from under him.

_Don’t fight back, don’t fight back, don’t fight back._

Peter wanted nothing more than to throw these idiots off him and go home, but he was just Peter Parker and Peter Parker couldn’t toss people that outweighed him by a hundred pounds onto the ground. 

Two held his arms firmly in place while another pinned his legs down, his ankles caught in large hands as they laughed harshly. 

Peter gasped in shock as Flash sent a swift kick into his ribs. It hurt like hell and knocked the wind from his lungs temporarily. Groaning, Peter slipped a little in their grasp. 

“Not such a tough guy now,” Flash spat. “Smartass. It’s fucking embarrassing watching you in class.” Peter had seemingly bruised Flash’s ego once again. 

A few of the other guys got a kick in, mostly just roughing him up. 

The works. 

Peter thought they’d leave him here, on the dirty ground with an aching body and no will to walk home, but he wasn’t expecting the knife.

Apparently Flash hadn’t been either because he laughed nervously and stepped back. 

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this might be going farther than what we agreed on.” He helped up his hands as he said this, always the coward when real consequences came into play.

“I’m teaching him a lesson, like you said.” the leader of the pack said. 

Peter struggled against the others, testing a little of his strength against theirs. He knew it wouldn’t be too hard to break free but he feared the consequences of using his powers more than he feared Flash’s dumb friends. 

“Get his shirt.” he commanded, holding the switchblade in a casual hand. 

He opened his mouth to yell out, maybe get someone’s attention, but one lifted his shirt while the other clamped a hand over his jaw. Before Peter could bite his hand, a small cut bloomed blood on his flank.

His whole body jerked, dizzy with pain and fear and fight or flight. His vision went blurry and then into hyper focus as another, longer cut was made. 

Peter breathed heavily through his nose, jaw clenched so tightly he feared he’d crack a tooth. 

He could feel himself growing faint despite the fact that he was loose very little blood. Peter could handle injuries and blood, but this pinned down feeling was making him feel sick. 

The kid holding the knife straightened up with a mean grin on his face, the same casual air around the hand holding his weapon.

The next few seconds passed in slow motion. 

The guy holding Peter’s feet eased up and Peter kicked his foot free. The other two dropped his arms and Peter’s head slammed into the concrete. Flash smacked the leader, shouting that he’d gone too far, and he slipped on some ice on the ground lost. He fell on top of Peter, knife first.

Peter screamed.

“Oh shit!” One shouted and they all fled.

Peter was left alone, head pounding and blood flowing. 

Peter opened his eyes to see an orange sky. 

He breathed in and out, throat clogged and lungs aching. The ground was so unbearably cold it hurt, but his limbs were heavy and weak.

His phone rang.

Peter groaned, the sound completely involuntary as he rolled onto his uninjured side. Reaching down slowly, he grabbed his phone from his back pocket and flopped back onto his back. 

It was Aunt May.

“Peter!” she shouted the moment he answered. 

“Hi Aunt May.” he croaked, wincing at the sound of his voice. 

“Peter, I’ve been calling and calling. Where are you?” 

“Oh,” he said lamely. His brain seemed to be working in slow motion, her words moving too fast for him to understand. “I forgot to text you...I went to the store.” 

Silence.

“....you went to the store?” 

“Y-yeah,” he swallowed thickly, rolling up into a sitting position. He almost screamed again as the blade moved in his gut. “I...I was craving cereal and w-were all out of the one I wanted.” Peter muffled his uneven pants in his jacket sleeve. “I’m sorry, May. I really meant to text you.”

There was a deep sigh from the other side of the phone. 

“It’s alright.” He instantly felt guilty for lying. “I was calling because Tony Stark just called me.” Peter’s eyes had slipped closed, but he jerked them back open in shock. 

“What? Why?” 

“He said that you never showed up today?” Peter’s brain seemed to be working as fast as possible to process what she was saying.

“Never showed up…?” Peter’s heart jolted as he suddenly realized. “It’s a lab day!” He jumped to his feet, ignoring the pain in his abdomen, gathered up his dropped possessions with a wince. “Oh my god, I don’t know how I forgot. Should I call him? Does he still want me to come over?” 

“He said he texted you and when you didn’t answer he called me, asking if you were sick or something. I told him I thought he was with you and then I started calling you. You really had me worried sick.” A fresh wave of guilt washed over him as he clutched his wound tightly to stop the bleeding. He hated that he’d worried her. “He said that if I got a hold of you and I didn’t ground your ass, that you were more than welcome to come later than usual.” 

Peter nodded, panting rather heavily as he started booking it down the street. He said he goodbyes to his aunt and continued to make his way as fast as he could to the subways. He’d be about an hour late but there should be a train leaving heading in the direction of the Tower.

As he was sitting in the moderately empty subway car, he discreetly put his web shooters on and reached under his shirt to quietly make a makeshift bandage from the webs. Once he was sure that the bleeding had stopped, he pulled a hoodie on over his ruined shirt to hide the bloodstains. 

Sighing, he leaned back with a wince to try and relax. His body was thrumming with his accelerated heartbeat and tingling adrenaline still in his system. 

It was a relief to step into the Stark Tower’s lobby and the private elevator up into the penthouse opened without prompt for him. 

Peter wiped sweat from his face, taking deep breaths to calm down after the whole incident. It’d been humiliating to have been held down and messed with like that, then terrifying when they’d knifed him. He didn’t think Flash was one to get mixed up with sketchy college kids, but then again Flash was kind of a dumbass. 

As the elevator came to a stop and the doors were sliding open, he realized his hands were shaking and he crammed them into his pockets to hide the tremors. 

Mr. Stark was were he’d expected him, hunched over some Iron Man tech while humming along to something thumping in the speakers. When Peter stepped into the room, they automatically adjusted to a quieter volume to signal that the man had a guest. 

He looked over his shoulder and quickly motioned for Peter to come over. Feeling a little tight headed, Peter quickly complied and scurried to the man’s side.

“Hey kid, come give me a hand…” 

Immediately Peter was calm and slipped easily into the casual rhythm of working with Tony Stark. 

It wasn’t until roughly an hour in when Mr. Stark looked up and seemed to see Peter for the first time.

“You’re looking a little pale, Pete. Everything good?” Peter blinked, snapped out of his mojo and scrambling for an answer. 

“Y-yeah all good here.” He smiled unconvincingly and quickly looked back down at the computer he was currently typing some code into. He tried to get back into the flow he’d just had, but the feeling of Mr. Stark’s eyes on him threw him off and he found it nearly impossible to focus. 

“How about we take a break, yeah? Feeling a little hungry.” The man stood and wiped his hands on a dirty looking rag before motioning for Peter to follow him out. Surprised, it took him a moment to realize that he was still sitting down instead of following his mentor. 

A firm hand on the back of his neck was a relief as he found himself checking out against his will. He didn’t like the cloudy feeling in his head and it made it hard to put one foot in front of the other. It didn’t help that this was the very first time Mr. Stark had ever offered a food break during their brief lab days. Peter felt totally off his groove.

“What’re you thinking, pizza? Thai food? Sandwiches? What sounds good?” Shaking himself back into the present, Peter found himself sitting on a comfortable couch in Tony’s personal living room.

“Umm, the first one?” Peter hadn’t meant it to sound so much like a question, he could tell he was making Mr. Stark suspicious but it was getting hard to focus as the foggy feeling was lifting enough for him to realize that his side really _really_ hurt. 

“Alright, kid. Sit tight.” 

When he was sure he wasn’t right next to him anymore, Peter collapsed onto his side and curled his arms protectively around himself. Biting his lip, he tried not to make a sound as the pressure both soothed and set aflame to the wound. The room was rocking and he vaguely felt sick.

Peter came to when he felt a hand touching his face and arms pulling him upright. He breathed in sharply at the movement, but barely twitched otherwise.

“I need you to open your eyes for me, Petey.” He wasn’t sure if they’d been speaking to him for a while or not but those were the first words he heard. 

Despite feeling disconnected from his body, Peter managed to crack his lids open. Mr. Stark’s face was blurry and almost unrecognizable, but Peter felt relaxed knowing that the man was nearby. 

He was horrified at being caught in such an embarrassing way but at the same time he felt better with Mr. Stark pulling him upwards into a pair of warm arms. Slumping into his embrace, Peter groaned and pressed his face into a firm shoulder. 

“I know, I know.” Mr. Stark murmured. “I just need you to stay awake for a minute, alright kid?” Nodding, Peter continued to lean all of his weight on him. Ignoring the prickles of guilt, he instead basked in the comfort Tony somehow always provided simply with his presence. Being wrapped up like this, no matter how sweaty he was or how awkwardly the man shifted him, seeming to sooth the pain into something he could temporarily ignore. 

Of course he’d never admit that, he didn’t need the actual Tony Stark to know how much a child he was. 

“Does your stomach hurt?” Unwilling to find the word to explain, Peter simply nodded as he tried to ignore the hot pain radiating from his abdomen. 

A hand gently pulled his arms away and he whimpered. Then he shouted in pain when Mr. Stark pressed a hand to his stomach lightly. He jerked away and the pain dissipated into shivers, he tried to curl up again but he was quickly stopped. 

“No, hey, none of that. Just breathe, Pete. This is gonna hurt but I gotta know what’s wrong.” Peter didn’t respond, a cold sweat pouring down his face as he panted against his chest. 

It was dead silent when he lifted Peter’s sweatshirt to reveal the bloodstained shirt beneath. Peter flinched when his shirt unstuck from the dissolving webs.

“Peter,” Tony whispered, voice strangely calm. “What is this?” 

The gentle way he’d been speaking, the embarrassment of being caught, the fear of Flash’s new friends, it all came crashing on him and he burst into humiliating sobs. 

The shaking and heaving sent stabs of pain through him, but he couldn’t control it as hot tears rolled down his face. He hated how weak and immature he was acting. 

Instead of drawing away, Mr. Stark scooted closer and murmured something unbearably soft into his hair. Peter almost felt worse when the man did. 

“What’s this for? Why the tears?” He asked as Peter tried to regain composure. Gulping in tears, Peter tried to explain himself.

“S-sorry! It just h-hurts. There’s….I had it u-under control...nothing, I...” He was cut off by a calloused hand pressing his face into Mr. Stark’s shirt. Peter coughed harshly and sobbed from the resulting pain. 

“Let’s start off with something simple, yeah?” Peter nodded, wiping his messy face. “Is this from today?” Another nod. “At school?” Peter hiccuped a confirmation. “Who?” 

“‘S dumb.” he mumbled, wincing at his whiny tone. “Just some asshole who doesn’t deserve the time of day.” 

“‘Just some asshole’ isn’t what people typically say when there’s this much blood.” Peter gnawed on his lower lip, still feeling like he shouldn’t really be bothering his mentor with something he could handle. 

“His name’s Flash.” Peter admitted after a beat of silence. “He...got a bunch of college guys together to mess around with. One of them pulled out a knife and things kinda escalated from there.” 

“Some kid _stabbed_ you?” Peter jolted, instantly wishing he could take back his words. When he noticed Peter’s squirming, Tony immediately settled and place a large hand on top of his mentee’s head. “I’m just...this isn’t some harmless prank, kid. They assaulted you. I get that being shoved into a locker or pushed around isn’t a big deal, but _this_ is.” 

“I guess… I thought I could handle it.” Mr. Stark scoffed but gentle fingers trailing through his hairs contradicted his harsh response. 

“Nevermind that, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Okay.” 

Eating pizza an hour later was a great way to relax after stitches. 

Peter was of course careful-he didn’t want to get them redone so soon!-but the rate he consumed slices was probably risky and definitely disgusting. 

“Slow down, you’ll choke.” Peter blushed at the soft sweep down his back when Mr. Stark spoke. He did heed his word, slowing down to chew thoughtfully on his food.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.” He adverted his gaze. “Y’know, for helping.” Peter hastily took another bite to keep him from doing anything else embarrassing. 

Mr. Stark hummed, his hand still resting on Peter’s back. It was quiet and Peter almost felt like they could pretend none of this had happened in the first place.

“Let’s watch a movie.” Peter nodded, relieved that he wasn’t pressing the matter further.

The next thing he knew, he was nodding off against the man’s chest like a child. He would have felt guilty for it if it wasn’t for the warm arm keeping him close as he fell asleep. 


End file.
